Buckle up for compelling drama
This is a show in which the delights are in the sometimes pithy dialogue and character interplay, finds James Croot.
Afan of detective dramas? Looking for a new series to get addicted to this summer? Then Three Pines (which debuts on Friday on Prime Video) may be just the show you’re looking for.
Starring the brilliant Alfred Molina, best known for playing Spider-man’s Doctor Otto Octavius twice and Diego Rivera to Selma Hayek’s Frida Kahlo in Frida, this Canadaset crime drama is based on the Chief Inspector Gamache novel series by Louise Penny.
The eight-part show is character-driven, yet crisply written and beautifully crafted by former Eastenders and Deceit screenwriter Emilia di Girolamo. The opening episode, directed by Last Tango in Halifax and Liar’s Samuel Donovan, sets the tone and mood magnificently, and makes great use of the smalltown Quebec settings.
When we meet Molina’s Armand Gamache, it’s Christmas Eve and he is worriedly watching as a protest against police inaction around missing indigenous peoples spirals out of control. After intervening to try to deescalate the situation, he offers to give one family a ride home. As they detail how 18-year-old Blue Two Rivers has been missing for 13 months and 11 days, Gamache asks ‘‘who is dealing with your case?’’
‘‘No-one is dealing with our case,’’ comes the terse reply.
Returning to the station, he explains to his boss why he’s keen to investigate further: ‘‘Because these missing person’s cases usually end up on my desk anyway – as homicides.’’
The reasoning fails to impress, though. ‘‘These cases are going to break your heart.
Most families do not get closure and I know what you are like – you are going to obsess about this.’’
Before Gamache can do that though, or even celebrate the holiday season, he is joining colleagues Jean-guy (Rossif Sutherland) and Isabelle (EllaMaija Tailfeathers) in heading to the small rural community Three Pines to look into the
mysterious death of CC de Poitiers (Simone-e´lise Girard).
At first blush, her electrocution while watching an outdoor curling match appears to be a freak accident. That’s what local officer Yvette Nicole (Sarah Booth) is convinced of anyway.
But as Gamache advises her, ‘‘every mistake I ever made was because I made an assumption and I acted on it as if it were fact’’.
Privately, Jean-guy fully endorses his doubts, noting that when ‘‘Agent Nicole’’ spent a week training with them, she ‘‘poured coffee on my favourite shirt, shredded an irreplaceable document and disclosed the location of a safe house to a violent person’’.
A closer examination of the crime scene definitely suggests foul play, at which point Gamache solemnly suggests, ‘‘buckle up everyone – none of us is going anywhere’’.
What follows is absorbing, compelling and entertaining viewing, as the quartet question an eclectic crosssection of plain-speaking townsfolk about their relationship with CC.
This is a show in which the delights are in the sometimes pithy dialogue and character interplay, whether it be a scene-stealing duck, or an extremely defensive book club.
At its heart is the brilliant Molina, in his first live-action TV role since 2017’s Feud:
Bette and Joan. Perfectly suited to play the thoughtful and compassionate Gamache, this could yet become his signature role (there are almost 20 books in the series after all).
Three Pines begins streaming on Prime Video on Friday.